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Nearly one month after a truck contracted by Gulfport Energy dumped 5,000 gallons of brine into a stream leading to the Barnesville reservoir, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency officials still are not sure what materials the spilled substance actually contained.
On March 9, officials with Ohio EPA and the state’s Department of Natural Resources joined local emergency authorities to investigate the scene along Ohio 800 south of Barnesville after a tractor-trailer overturned. The unnamed tributary into which the liquid spilled leads to the reservoir. The village has the ability to draw water from two other reservoirs, so there was no immediate threat to the drinking water supply.
“The Ohio EPA is still waiting for data on this,” agency spokesman James Lee said Friday regarding the materials contained in the brine. “Gulfport Energy has indicated that this was not water from the hydraulic fracturing process.”
According to Ohio Revised Code, brine can be “all saline geological formation water resulting from, obtained from, or produced in connection with exploration, drilling, well stimulation, production of oil or gas, or plugging of a well.”
Oklahoma City-based Gulfport is one of several companies fracking in the vicinity of the western Belmont County village of 4,100 residents.
Last year, Gulfport sued the village for the right to draw specific amounts of water from the Slope Creek Reservoir, but the suit was ultimately dropped so the parties could seek an amicable solution to the dispute. Gulfport reported a $1.2 billion loss last year amid the depressed oil and natural gas price environment, but the company still plans to use $375 million for more drilling and fracking this year.